Privacy and Ethics in IoT and Consumer Analytics

“The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.” – George Orwell, 1984

On the surface, the Internet of Things brings with it an enormous potential to improve our quality of life. For one, IoT can bring simple luxuries, like being able to see who’s at the door from your smartphone or sending you a notification when your refrigerator detects that you are low on milk. For another, IoT can help those who truly need it, with smart pacemakers helping regulate heartbeats and smart pill bottles that monitor medication usage. While these advancements are only the beginning of what IoT can bring, there are those who claim that we buy into these advances at the hefty cost of our personal privacy [...]